Like all other physical theory, Lisi's is just another
model of
percieved physical reality.
Newton's model was 3-dimensional. Then Einstien's 4-dimensional
representation, or model, etc, etc ...
Lisi's model, as has already been mentioned somewhere in this thread, happens to be identical to E8, described by some as,
'the most complicated
object in mathematics.'
But these
opinions about
complexity vary from expert to expert. For example, many researchers have claimed the Mendelbrot Set is the
most complex object in mathematics, etc, etc ...
Anyway, Lisi's model happens to have about 248-dimensions. And through various
group transofrmations of various
catagories of
projections of E8 Lisi was initially remarkably successful at achieving the same kinds of
symmetries with regard to several important
fundamental particles as the mainstream
quantum mechanical model made famous by Einstien.
And, a note here about the term
particle. A
particle in a physical theory is just a part of the
model. It's not at all
like there's all these itsy-bitsy teeny-tiny bb's whirling around.
Particles are just a
convenient way of conceptualizing a theory
which is able to accuratly predict how the real world behaves. At the
macroscopic scale indeed there are particles, but at the
atomic-scale and below they aren't really particles as we might think of particles in our daily world. They are certainly not little
solid
bits of matter!!. This is the whole point of
theorectical physics!. They are trying to find out what matter
really is!. And so all
the
models are merely that - just conveniences for framing a theory ... I know - it's confusing ...
But, whatever, it's been a couple of years since we've heard anything from Lisi, in terms of new papers. And lots of others were initially
captivated by his totally new representation (
model ) ... we haven't heard anything from anybody on this for a few years.
The technicalities certainly must be monumental. And Lisi himself never expressed any opinions that this was
it, the Theory of Everything. It
was others that suggested that it
could be. And the media took over from there.
If Lisi expressed anything about his theory at all, it was that he had no idea how he was going to move it forward from it's infancy, the basic
expressions of first-order symmetries which matched the classical quantum models. As I recall, the work he had left to do involved finding a way to
express 2nd- and 3rd-order symmetries as well.
Maybe I didn't get that last part right, and I'm not a theoretical physicist by any stretch of the imagination. I just write too much
There's another name in this
new physics story as well, somebody who isn't heard of at all anymore. But
Grigory Perleman recieved quite a lot of attention in the popular press back in 2006 when he
won the Fields award for solving the
Poincaré conjecture, which had been an open problem since 1904, and also the most important problem in
topology. Perleman's popular fame came not so much for his genuinely first-order mathematical genius, but for the fact that he
refused the
Fields award with it's 1-million dollar cash award!
Truly an eccentric genius !
Perleman also was working on
outside the box new physics models and I forget the details, but roughly speaking he and another individual had
developed the theory to the point where they were able to arrive at several commonly accepted funamental physical constants. Something Lisi was
nowhere near doing when his paper was published in 2006. Perleman's work had also progressed to the point where they were making testable predictions
about certain phenomena. I seem to recall their model had 6- or 8-dimensions and was somehow different from standard
string theory.
Oh, I'm done now ... jeeeeshhhh ! Where did all that come from ?
[edit on 6-2-2009 by visible_villain]